How do you feel about birth? A study on basic birth beliefs

Abstract

The following study investigates the effect of reading one of two birth stories on opinions relating to birth philosophies. This study incorporates an experimental design to evaluate whether reading a birth story that takes place in a home correlates to participants leaning towards a Natural birth philosophy more than the Medical model of birth. There were 337 participants in the study (N=337) randomly assigned to one of two groups. The Version 1 group read a birth story that took place in a home and the Version 2 group read a birth story that took place in a hospital. The hypothesis was that reading the Home birth story would show a positive relationship with a Natural birth philosophy. The survey following the birth stories included items from the Birth Beliefs Scale from Yael Benyaminito and Heidi Preis created in 2016 at the Bob Shapell School of Social Work, Tel Aviv University. In the experimental study, the independent variable is having read the Home birth story. The dependent variable is the extent to which participants' numerical scores from their survey responses follow the Natural birth model on the Birth Beliefs Scale. The results show that participants who read the Home birth story reported scores aligned slightly closer with the Medical model, showing the results were not in line with the hypothesis.